Edinburgh Waterfront

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

New apartment buildings in the Edinburgh Waterfront area on a site that formerly housed port-related industries.

Edinburgh Waterfront is a redevelopment of parts of Edinburgh along the shores of the Firth of Forth in Leith and Granton. Over the next ten to fifteen years the development was expected to create 9,400 jobs, clean up contaminated land, build 5,300 new homes including affordable housing for rent and sale, create more than a million square feet (90,000 m²) of commercial space, mainly for offices and businesses, create 260,000 square feet (24,000 m²) of retail space, offer quality public open space and urban design throughout, and establish two new schools. the project was started in 2004.

[edit] Criticism

The Waterfront Edinburgh project has been criticised for several reasons. By 2007, overspending on events like Burns' Suppers and meetings has led to many members of the local community becoming angry at the lack of actual building progress. The project also came under fire when developers forced a local rehearsal studio (The Lighthouse Studios) to vacate their premises to build flats. The anger was fuelled by the fact that a large number of flats had already being built in the area and that The Lighthouse Studios provided an almost invaluable service to the whole of Edinburgh.^{[citation needed]}